There are a lot of great researchers who are working tirelessly to expose the lies and hypocrisy of Nick Pope. One of those is Philip Mantle. Philip has written this great article about Mr. Pope and his missing time episode. Of course, nothing about this incident is ever straight forward. This is Mr. Pope we are dealing with, after all! So sit back, relax and let Philip Mantle tell you about the Missing Tollboth incident…
NICK POPE & THE ‘MISSING TOLLBOOTH’ RIDES AGAIN
By Philip Mantle
Pretty much everyone in the UFO community will know of Nick Pope and his claims that from 1991-1994 he ran the UK governments ‘UFO PROJECT’, was the UK government’s ‘UFO expert’ and investigated UFOs, crop circles and alien abductions for the UK Ministry of Defence. These are his exact words from his own website:
“Nick Pope ran the British Government’s UFO project. From 1991 to 1994 he researched and investigated UFOs, alien abductions, crop circles and other strange phenomena, leading the media to call him the real Fox Mulder. Nick Pope ran the British Government’s UFO project. From 1991 to 1994 he researched and investigated UFOs, alien abductions, crop circles and other strange phenomena, leading the media to call him the real Fox Mulder. “
Let’s make things quite clear before we move on. According to the Ministry of Defence, Nick Pope’s previous employers, none of this is true. Below is one document from the UK National Archives which quickly puts the record straight. There are many other documents that once viewed can only leave one outcome is that The MoD are right and Nick Pope is not. He did none of these things.
Nick Pope claims that before he took this job at the MoD that he was a complete skeptic and that because of the UFO cases he ‘investigated’ etc he eventually became a believer. He claims he had no prior knowledge of experience of the UFO phenomenon.
In 2021 I wrote a lengthy article detailing that once again Nick Pope was using a very large degree of ‘artistic licence’ when he came to his claim that he had never seen a UFO or had any kind of close encounter. The fact was that in January 1991 before he took the job at the MoD’s ‘UFO desk’ (a nickname for Air Staff 2A – the MoD department that handled public reports and or requests for more info on UFO sighting. It was not a ‘UFO PROJECT’) he did indeed have a, missing time’ or more accurately a ‘missing tollbooth’ encounter in Florida, USA. The basic story is that Nick was on holiday with his girlfriend and was driving on toll road with another friend asleep in the back seat. After a while they apparently found themselves reaching their destination with no recollection of actually coming off the toll road. In fact they still had their ticket which they would have had to use in order to exit the toll road. Nick was very perplexed by this and several years later he underwent regressive hypnosis in the USA. Here he recounted getting out of the car and entering a large object (UFO) but did not see any beings or aliens.
Nick Pope admitted all of this to a group of UFO researchers in 1995 after a screening of the alien autopsy film in London. Other researchers have gone on the record that this story under his own name, was to appear in his first book ‘OPEN SKIES- CLOSED MINDS’ and UK author/UFO researcher Jenny Randles even read it in the first draft of the book. However when you read this book there is no sign of Nick’s missing time episode which happened in January 1991 a few months before joining the ‘UFO desk’. However, a few years down the line Nick Pope writes his second book ‘THE UNIVITED’ which deals with accounts of alien abductions and hey presto the story is there. Well not quite. Instead of it being Nick Pope and his former girlfriend it is now ‘Peter’ and ‘Jenny’. Pope claims these are false names for two witnesses that he interviewed and it is not him and his ex-girlfriend. All this despite what Jenny Randles read in the draft of his first book and the UFO researchers that Nick told the story to in 1995. He has made a variety of different comments about this but basically he says it was not him and it’s all a pack of lies.
Well in early 2022 another gentleman has stepped forward to once again confirm that he was informed by Nick Pope that he had indeed had a missing time experience in the USA in 1991. This man is even featured in Nick Pope’s second book ‘THE UNINVITED’, the very same book where Peter (Nick Pope) and Jenny (Nick’s girlfriend) tell their missing tollbooth story.
The man in question who has now stepped forward is Cris Martin and his girlfriend that is featured with him in ‘THE UNINVITED’ is Vaunda Hosick. Their accounts are featured in Chapter 13 under the heading of ‘INTERVIEW WITH THE ALIENS (page 205 – 221). Cris joined a discussion about Nick Pope of my facebook page and this is what he later sent me on email:
“Hi Philip. As per our earlier discussion, my statement below.
I first met Nick Pope on 1996 on the set of ITV studios morning daytime show “The Time, The Place”. I was with my then partner Vaunda Hoscik. Nick was promoting his first book and was preparing for his next book and made it clear he was interested in interviewing us both for his next book “The Uninvited”. We went to his flat in South London several times to be interviewed about our experiences and it was at one of these meetings he also chatted about his own abduction experience whilst driving in the USA with a female friend. He wrote about it under an assumed name in the very same book. He didn’t want to come out as an abductee at the time as he felt it would undermine his reputation as an impartial researcher. We both respected his right for privacy and didn’t speak of it again.
Moving forward 26 years and the contextual climate has shifted. Pope has set himself up as a leading UFO commentator and public speaker. He claims to be a trustworthy commentator but his stance on whether aliens are real remains ambiguous. This is in direct conflict with his own missing time encounter. My opinion is that he cannot lie to the public any longer and must come clean. Pope cannot be regarded as trustworthy when he continues to deny that this incident occurred. I would also like to say I have no axe to grind or any grudge against Mr Pope, I just want him to stop lying and tell the truth.
I can confirm that the details given are true to the best of my knowledge.
Cris Martin, Jan 2022.”
This is what Cris originally posted on my facebook page: Cris Martin
Philip Mantle I recently tried to contact Nick and was blanked by him for some reason. I used to know him quite well back in the 90s and some of you may remember myself and my then partner were featured in his book “The Uninvited”. He also wrote the foreword to my book “Intruders in the night” published in 2000. He does not seem to want to talk about his own abduction experience for some reason. Comments I have made on his FB page about this have been deleted by him. If he would lie to people about this important event, then one must ask what else is he lying about?
Cris Martin & Vaunda Hoscik.
Cris Martin
Some of the deleted facebook postings are here:
MoD letter
Conclusion:
There is no doubt in my mind that Nick pope is indeed ‘Peter’ as featured in his book ‘THE UNINVITED’ and that he did indeed have a ‘missing time’ experience in January 1991 in Florida and later went under hypnotic regression There are many reasons why Nick Pope now wants to deny this is him, one being that it would make a mockery of him comments that he knew nothing about UFOs and had never had a UFO sighting prior to joining Air Staff 2A in July 1991. His story of being converted from skeptic to believer while working at the MoD would also go straight out of the window. As Cris Martin has made clear he has no axe to grind with Nick Pope and neither have I but the UFO community deserves the truth and the facts and it will be interesting to see what excuse Nick Pope comes up with this time regarding Cris Martin’s comments. To clarify where I stand I am 100% convinced that Nick Pope is indeed ‘Peter’ and he and his girlfriend did have a missing time experience in Florida in 1991. When you also look at the MoD documents at The National Archives there is also no doubt in my mind that Nick Pope did not run the UK governments UFO project as there never was one. He did not investigate UFOs, crop circles alien abductions etc on any official basis for the MoD and he was not the UK government’s UFO expert. And last but not least he is not anything remotely like ‘the real Fox Mulder’ he was instead, as the MoD have informed us, a junior D-grade civil servant and nothing more.
About the author:
Philip Mantle is a long standing UFO researcher and author from the UK. He was formerly the Director of Investigations for the British UFO Research Association and was the MUFON Representative for England. He is a regular contributor to Outer Limits Magazine and other publications around the world. He is the founder of FLYING DISK PRESS and can be contacted at:
Nick Pope Watch 
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